Thanks for the reviews for part one!
2xxx
Dean was waiting for her in the motel room.
Sara kicked the door shut, noting dispassionately how she could make out the motel wallpaper through Dean's torso. "Hey, Dean," she said quietly. "Where are you?"
"You have to get me out of here, Sara."
"I know, but you have to tell me something-"
"Just get me out of here!"
"I'm trying!"
"So try harder!"
And just like that, he was gone again.
Sara gave herself a few minutes to pull herself back together, but that was all she could spare. The case, think about the case...
So her mother had been to this part of Iowa in 1993 and had also called Maxwell asking about mirror magic. What a coincidence. Well, at least it gave Sara a place to start.
The Lucians had, as a family, been fighting demons as exorcists for hundreds of years. Somewhere along the line, one of them had started keeping a diary, much like the journals Hunters tended to keep, and the tradition had carried on right to Sara herself. Currently the Lucian Diaries filled several entire bookshelves in her home in Wisconsin, row upon row of battered leather-bound notebooks. Sara had spotted the problem of only having one copy of these texts and had been working on typing them all up, scanning some pages in to keep the copies as accurate as possible.
These copies now lived on compact disks which travelled around with Sara in her duffel bag. Yanking the bag towards her, Sara dug through her clothes until she found the plastic cases. She hadn't typed up all the Diaries, not by a long shot, but she'd started with her own mother's and was working her way backwards. Hopefully she'd made it to '93.
Okay, somebody up there did like her. Right at the bottom of her bag was the right disk. Sara took it out and tracked down her laptop, which was on the bed under a pile of other stuff, and started the computer up. Finally, she could slide the disk in and find out just what on earth was going on here.
Eyes skimming the text on screen, Sara searched for the answers. And didn't find exactly what she was looking for. Didn't find anything at all.
Amelia Lucian hadn't always kept the most thorough of notes – more often than not, you'd write down bits and bobs as you thought of them and try to sort it all out later. But there was nothing. Not about this town, not in '93 or in any of the other entries. There wasn't even anything about mirror magic, and if Amelia had needed to ask Maxwell about it, she would've written it down. That's how the diaries worked. Everything written down in the Lucians' own words and records until they didn't need to ask anyone for help.
Furiously, Sara shoved the laptop away. This was beyond ridiculous. She'd never expected her mother to help out when she was alive. Why should it be any different now she was dead?
But she knew the answer to that one. Because it was Dean. Okay, not only Dean. It was like this when any member of her 'family' was threatened. The one and only time Sara had flat-out begged her mother for help was when Adrian Atwood had gone missing. He'd turned up in a bar five miles from where he was supposed to be, trying to drown memories of the loss of a young victim in cheap tequila, but the terror had been real enough.
Sara started pacing, trying to keep her attention focused. Dean was missing, her mother had down something here ten years ago, and there was a room reeking of magic. There had to be some connection. Not to mention Dean's non-appearances.
Hang on...
Dean's appearances were... wrong. He was certainly stubborn enough to be able to claw his way out of wherever he was to give her a message, but... Dean hadn't told her anything useful. Not one little thing. And Dean was good at giving information in life-threatening situations, she knew that well enough. He'd know to tell her something relevant. Sara knew there were plenty of things that could make themselves look like another person, but few of them ever managed to act like the person. She should've cottoned onto this earlier and all.
Mirrors and mirror-images. It just got better and better, didn't it?
xxx
The house was pretty bad in daylight, but in the moonlight it looked even more ridiculous. It was the architecture version of ghost in white sheets and chains, and had Dean been with Sara, she would've been treated with a host of bad jokes.
But as it was just her, Sara put all frivolous thoughts out of her head and went to the Impala. With a silent apology to Dean, she picked the lock on the trunk. Taking a few items from her bag and putting them in her pockets, she lobbed the backpack into the trunk and took out a crowbar. A blunt instrument was of great comfort in troubling times, she'd discovered. That was Dean rubbing off on her, of course.
The herbs stuffed in her pocket, however, that was entirely her mother.
The front door was still open, no one caring enough about the property to do so much as shut the door. Sara entered and made her way confidently upstairs. She had a plan, it was a terrible plan, but still she had a plan. That counted for a lot these days.
She re-entered the mirror room and kicked the door shut behind her, ignoring the revulsion at being surrounded by mirrors. Sara knew that doing any magic between two mirrors, let alone ten, was just about the dumbest thing you could do, but just one spell was an acceptable risk. The mirrors would trap all the energy as well, meaning she didn't need to bother with any protective circles. Not that there would be much excess energy. All she was doing was a simple revealing spell. If there was anything solidly supernatural here, this would indicate what.
A tin bowl was pulled from one of her pockets, the herbs tossed in with some sulphur and pig's blood. Sara used a zippo to set fire to the sticky heap and wafted the smoke around the tiny room. This concoction had been one of her mother's discoveries and Sara had used it often enough in the last few years, but not once in the months since Amelia had died.
But Amelia Lucian's influence seemed to stretch beyond the grave as the spell did its work and shadowy images began to appear. Normally, such images floated in thin air, faint and transparent. This time they formed inside the mirrors themselves.
Sara stared in absolute horror, turning slowly to see each mirror in turn. Nine pale faces stared back at her from first nine mirrors, faces she knew well from the missing people reports she'd studied on the way here. And in the tenth mirror...
"Dean," she whispered.
She'd been seeing some spectral version of Dean all day, but this was different. Whilst that Dean had been instinctively wrong in some faint way, this Dean seemed real. It was probably the look on his face; part annoyance, part embarrassment at his current situation. As she watched, the ghostly figures faded away, leaving her own reflection in their place.
Well, this might just be simpler than Sara had thought. Trapping things in mirrors was a time-honoured, ghastly practice and the way to release anything was the same – smashing the mirror.
She stepped forward and hefted the borrowed crowbar. Her upper body strength wasn't nearly as good as a male Hunter's, but she could easily smash a damn mirror. But as she swung the crowbar back, ready to smash, it was grabbed from behind.
Furious, Sara looked over her shoulder to see Eric Parkson gripping her chosen weapon.
"Believe me," he said. "You don't want to do that."
xxx
Downstairs from the mirror room, Eric built up a fire in his old sitting room as Sara hovered by the door, arms crossed and thoroughly pissed-off.
"What's your name?" he asked suddenly.
"Lucian."
"Odd name for a girl."
She rolled her eyes. "I come from an odd family. What's the deal with the mirrors?"
Eric studied her for a moment. "What are you?"
"Human. You?"
"No, I mean, how do you know about... this?"
Sara shrugged. "I hunt things."
"Things?"
She rattled the list off, deliberately flippant. "Ghosts, demons, poltergeists, Black Dogs, Wendigoes-"
"How are you with Doppelgangers?"
"Studied them. Never actually faced one."
"There's one bound in the mirrors upstairs."
"You what?" She couldn't help the incredulous response. You didn't bind a Doppelganger, you just didn't.
"Ten years ago, my family was being slaughtered. Household by household. In each case, all evidence pointed to someone who lived in that house. That person was never found in each case. All the mirrors in the houses were missing."
"So the Doppelganger stole one person and assumed their form to kill the others, then hid the mirrors so the vic couldn't be freed," Sara said. "Classic. How many died?"
"My two brothers, my parents, my mother's two siblings, and all in their houses."
"So how did you bind the Doppelganger?"
"I didn't. I didn't know what to think, you know, but then this woman turned up, going on about mirrors and demons-"
"Oh, I don't believe this," Sara muttered. "Let me guess. English accent, sort of like a school teacher and called Amelia?"
Eric blinked. "You knew her?"
"Thought I did. Do you have any idea what she actually did?"
"She said she split the Doppelganger in ten fragments and bound each fragment into one of the mirrors. The mirrors made the binding stronger, or something, 'cause they reflected the binding back on itself. Uh, she told me to stay out of the room as much as possible and never to break any of the mirrors."
Sara hesitated for a moment, her mind working. "The nine kids who went missing... Your nephew was the first, right?"
Eric nodded.
"When? The exact date?"
"19th of September."
"Late at night?"
"Yeah. Right out of this house. Why?"
Sara swallowed. "That's when Amelia died. She died, and that weakened the spell enough for the Doppelganger to take a new victim." She shook her head. "She must have thought the spell would hold without anyone else maintaining it. Typical Lucian arrogance."
"So can you do something? Can you get my nephew back?"
"I don't know. The way to release a Doppelganger's victim is to break the mirror, but breaking the mirror will also let the monster out. Hey, did you ever see your nephew? I mean, after he disappeared?"
"Yeah, actually. I didn't say anything, 'cause it was crazy. It was him, but not him. Like a ghost or something."
"What did he want?"
"For me to smash the mirrors. He kept saying if I smashed the mirrors, he'd be able to come home. But that's crazy, isn't it?"
"Not to me." Sara reached out and grabbed the crowbar. "That's the traditional way to free a bound spirit. Destroy the container," she explained over her shoulder.
"What are you doing?" Eric called after her as she left the room and hurried back up the stairs.
It was as Sara had suspected; her ever-conscientious mother had numbered the mirrors. That suggested a pattern, a set way of undoing the binding. She grabbed the bowl of blood, herbs and sulphur and threw it at a mirror. Dean's mirror.
He reappeared, ethereal and slightly sheepish.
"Can you hear me?" Sara asked.
Dean nodded, even managing a faint grin.
"Is the Doppelganger with you?"
He shook his head.
Eric made it to the mirror room, sticking his head in the door. "What the-"
"Eric, that's my friend, Dean. Long story. Dean, how do you kill a Doppelganger?"
Mirror-Dean gestured.
"Blunt force? Excessive violence?" Sara guessed. He nodded. "Okay. Anything else I should know?"
Vague shrugging.
Sara slowly turned, looking at each mirror one by one. "Dean's in number ten," she said. "So your nephew must be in one and so on. Breaking any one mirror will release the person inside it. But breaking all ten mirrors will also release the Doppelganger. Brilliant."
"So you can only free nine people?"
Sara shook her head. "No. There's another way, there has to be." But that wasn't strictly true. Whatever Amelia Lucian had done here was so far off what was deemed acceptable use of magic that she hadn't even recorded coming here. She had believed that whatever she had done would hold the Doppelganger permanently, so she wouldn't have seen the need for any safe way to undo the magic.
Sara had never really understood her mother as a person, but she knew how Amelia worked where the supernatural was concerned. Trapping the Doppelganger in not one mirror but ten was inspired. Admittedly, it was also insane, but it had worked.
"I have to break all ten mirrors," she realised. "Or no one gets out."
"But that means the Doppelganger will be released!" Eric protested.
"I can handle the monster," Sara said firmly.
"It'll go after my family again-"
"I said, I can handle it. You need to get out of here."
"This is insanity!"
"I'm not going to leave those people in there."
"You mean you're not going to leave your friend in there."
"Did you complain this much when Amelia came and saved your ungrateful skin?"
"You can't do this!"
Sara whirled around, furious. "If you're willing to trade your nephew's life for your own safety, I should let the damn Doppelganger kill you now!"
"How dare you-"
"Look, mate, I am out of patience! I dare because I've faced things you'd be afraid to even imagine. Humans? Not really all that threatening these days."
"Who is he? This guy you're willing to risk everything for?"
"Twice the man you'll ever be. Now, are you going to leave or do I need to get nasty?"
Eric scowled at her. "Fine. Get yourself killed."
"Oh, I intend to," Sara murmured as he thudded down the stairs. "But not today."
She turned back to the mirrors, frowning. The Doppelganger's real power lay in mimicry. Once you knew what you were facing wasn't who it looked like, it was no harder to kill than a ridiculously strong human. Two guns, a crowbar and some burning hatred should do the job pretty well.
But there was a reason why Amelia hadn't simply shot the damn thing when she had the chance to. To kill the Doppelganger, you had to let it manifest completely. Then it wouldn't need mirrors to wreak havoc; it could do it on its own. And there was no re-trapping of a monster like this. Once it was out, it was either killed or would happily kill everyone it came across for the rest of eternity.
Sara knew what her mother would do in her place. Redo the binding, locking the demon in permanently, along with its ten victims. Had Dean not be taken as well, Sara might even have done the same thing. But this was Dean. No way in hell was she leaving him in a mirror with a monster.
The only problem, the only fact that she hadn't told Eric, was that breaking the mirrors didn't guarantee the victim's return. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't and no one could really explain it. This might all be for nothing. She's be releasing a monster and she still wouldn't get Dean back.
"Oh, what the hell," she whispered and smashed the first mirror. Then the second and the third and on until the mirror-room was shattered, even the one behind the door.
When the crowbar hit the tenth mirror – Dean's mirror – it shook in Sara's hands. She wasn't just releasing the monster, but also the magic, and all of that was going straight into the length of metal in her hands. Sara dropped the crowbar quickly before something happened.
There were rules for this sort of thing. The Doppelganger would be released from the same location it had been trapped in. There was no way it had been in this room; this was where Amelia had done the binding, so the Doppelganger had a link to this room, but wasn't actually in it. There was only one other mirror in the house, a small one at the other end of the hallway.
Sara kicked the door open, her revolver in her hands. The hallway was empty, but the mirror was completely blackened. The Doppelganger was most certainly free. She made her way cautiously along the hallway, moving softly even in her heavy boots, revolver held steadily in her hands. Adrian had taught her how to stalk silently through a deserted house, but she could never find the inner-cool, the alert relaxedness that he could. She was just alert and by the time the hunt was over, her whole body ached from tension.
Come on, come on, come on...
A floorboard creaked behind her. Sara swung around and pulled the trigger. The Doppelganger ducked the first shot, dodged the second and flung itself at Sara. She darted to one side and stuck out a leg to trip the monster, intending to send it sprawling down the stairs.
The plan almost worked. The Doppelganger caught hold of Sara's arm and pulled her down with it. They rolled down the stairs, landing in a heap by the front door, Sara on top of the Doppelganger.
It kicked her off, sending her crashing right through the closed front door. Sara recovered quickly, rolling back up onto her feet despite the pain in her back.
The revolver was gone, most likely having fallen out of her hand at some point between the upstairs hallway and the front lawn. But Sara always had another gun.
She whipped out the Beretta and had it pointing at the Doppelganger as it raised her own revolver against her.
"Well, lookee here," it said, grinning. "Little Lucian's going to shoot her best friend?"
"You're not him," she said firmly. That much she was certain of. "But you are one cocky son of a bitch, aren't you? Snatching a Hunter, drawing attention to yourself like that?"
"None of the civilians here knew what to do. I needed someone like you to help me."
"If you call getting shot 'help', sure."
"If you were going to shoot me, you'd have done it already. No, you helped me. Let me go. So I'll give you back your friend."
"And what, I let you slaughter Eric and his sister?"
The Doppelganger grinned at her, Dean's grin and Sara redoubled her grip on her gun. "That was just something to pass the time. I'm over that phase, don't worry. Come on, Huntress, you know it as well as I do. Without me to guide him, Dean'll never make it back to the real world."
"I smashed the mirror, reopened the pathway. He's a smart guy, he'll figure it out."
"Only if he wants to come back," it said. "Many people prefer the mirror-world, you know. Especially if they don't have much to come back to."
"He'll come back."
"You're that sure? Then shoot me!"
So she did. Three shots straight to the chest.
The thing staggered back, its back colliding with the white painted wall of the house, leaving a bloody mark. Then it straightened, blood trickling down its chin. "Didn't Dean mention?" it said clearly. "Bullets don't work on me, little Lucian."
Sara shot it again, on principle more than anything else, and ran. Briefly, she thought of the crowbar, but that was contaminated by magic and in completely the wrong place for her to retrieve it. Trying to batter the Doppelganger to death with her bare hands simply wasn't going to work.
She sprinted away the house to the Impala, the Impala with its glorious psycho-killer trunk. The locked trunk, and no time to pick it open. Sara changed direction, heading around the house to the back porch.
The Doppelganger was catching up. Sara could hear its footsteps behind her and, ridiculously, that gave her some hope. Dean could move silently, even at speed. If the Doppelganger couldn't, maybe that meant it couldn't fight like Dean either. Which meant Sara had a chance. The monster was fast, though, even with three bullets in its chest. Well, there were other places to shoot.
Sara stopped abruptly and turned, aiming for the creature's kneecaps. She got off one more shot, left kneecap, but the Doppelganger didn't even stumble. Right, new plan.
There was one other fact on her side. The Doppelganger was armed with her revolver, which normally would mean the end for Sara. But it hadn't shot her. Hadn't even tried to. Which implied it didn't want her dead – it wanted her to suffer, possibly giving her more time to get this situation under control again.
Why couldn't Parkson be a normal guy and have stuff all over his lawn? A nice spade would be so useful right about now, but there wasn't even a big stick. Desperately, Sara dropped and spun, scything the monster's legs out from under it with a kick. It looked like beating it to death with her hands was the only option, so she leapt on top of it and started punching.
It kicked her off again and Sara hit the ground hard, rolling away just before the Doppelganger's knee connected with her stomach. She flipped back onto her feet and circled with her opponent, keeping her arms up to protect her face.
The Doppelganger was a mess, bleeding from the chest, leg and nose, but it grinned savagely at her. Sara glared back, watching it carefully for any hints of impending violence.
"Big mistake, little girl, letting me out of the mirror. Your momma knew better," it said. "Not that it did her much good, right? Heard on the grapevine that she took herself out of the game."
It lunged forward. Sara swerved around it and slammed her foot into the back of its knee, cracking it in the neck at the same time with an elbow. The Doppelganger stumbled and then charged forward again. This time, Sara grabbed it and swung it around, slamming its head into one of the porch's wooden posts. There was a satisfying crunch and Sara gave it another knock for good measure before it pushed itself back, body-slamming Sara into the ground.
"Lucians are all the same," it hissed. "Way to easy to crush."
Sara stabbed it in the ribs. Thank you, paranoia, for my arsenal. Twisting the knife in the wound made the Doppelganger howl in pain. Some shoving and another stab got Sara out from under the creature. She hung onto the knife and slammed it down through its neck, her hands covered in red blood. One final blow through its heart and Sara staggered back, wiping her hands on her jeans. She hated blood on her hands, whether it be human or monster or her own.
Or Dean's.
Stop that, she told herself firmly. That's not Dean. Never was Dean. Never will be Dean.
That was true enough. Hunters and exorcists had at one point been almost at war, but those days where long past. Dean would never attack her, Sara was sure of it, despite her mother's paranoia about 'getting too close', 'trusting the wrong guy'. This... thing was about as far from Dean Winchester as you could get.
The Doppelganger shifted weakly on the grass. Normally if bullets didn't do much, neither would blades, but Sara's knife was iron and had been blessed by Pastor Jim. Iron and sanctity, two useful weapons against any supernatural foe. But the Doppelganger was still alive and Sara wanted it dead. Really dead.
She spared a quick glance around and spotted what she'd overlooked when fighting for her life. Grimly, Sara walked over to the chopping-block and grabbed the axe, yanking it free with some effort.
When she was standing over the Doppelganger again, she made sure it could see the axe in her hands.
"Bring back Dean," she ordered it.
"I cannot," it rasped, blood spilling from its mouth.
"Bring him back!"
When the Doppelganger started to laugh, Sara raised the axe and brought in down, neatly beheading the creature. She left the axe stuck in the ground, stumbled away for a few steps and then threw up, stomach rejecting the little she'd eaten since Dean had vanished. No matter what her head said about the Doppelganger, she felt like she'd just decapitated Dean.
Sara retrieved her revolver and pistol and stuffed them away, although not without care, then made her unsteady way back to the Impala. It took her far longer to re-pick the trunk's lock with her hands shaking, but she managed it eventually and fished out the container of gas Dean kept there. Returning to the dead Doppelganger, Sara tried to avoid looking at it as she soaked it liberally in gasoline and tossed a match onto it. When the flames had covered the body, she added a handful of herbs for cleansing, just in case.
There were very few things that could survive shooting, stabbing, beheading and burning. Any of the above, yes, but not all four. Sara stood there until the flames died away again, leaving only ash. Aside from the blood on her hands and clothes, there was no sign that the creature had ever lived. She'd won.
Yippee for her.
There was no way in hell Sara could walk back to town looking like this. She grabbed the remaining gas and carried it back to the Impala, shutting the trunk again when the container was back in its place. The front door of the house was hanging half-off its hinges, courtesy of Sara slamming into and through it at speed, so she re-entered the house and found the kitchen. Standing at the sink, she scrubbed her hands until the blood was gone. In something close to desperation, she dumped water on her jeans in an attempt to cover up the smears on blood on them. There was more on her shirt as well, so she yanked it over her head and dunked the entire thing in the sink. A quick rinse was all she could cope with, so she wrung out the shirt and pulled it back on, sopping wet.
From the kitchen, Sara could see the charred patch on the lawn, all that remained of the Doppelganger. Slowly, she moved back to the front of the house, wedging the front door shut behind her. She ignored the creaking of the porch steps and sat on the top one, glancing at her watch. Hours 'till dawn.
"Many people prefer the mirror-world, you know. Especially if they don't have much to come back to."
"He'll come back."
Would Dean come back? Of course he would. He had loads to come back to. You know... all the nice stuff.
Like the most thankless job in the world. Like a father who saw him as a foot-soldier, not a son. Like a brother who just walked out of his life, despite everything Dean had done for him.
Sara rested her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. And waited.
Hours passed. Her shirt and jeans dried on her body, but not before she was chilled to the bone.
She'd done this before, only six months ago. The night Amelia Lucian had died, Sara had just sat in the middle of a forest somewhere, soaked by rain and frozen by wind, unable to move or think. Just waiting, although she had no idea for what.
Now she had a vague idea. She had been waiting for Dean. She hadn't even called him, or told anyone, but her friends had figured it out and he had come.
Just like he would this time.
But as the sun rose, fresh dawn light reflecting off the Impala, Sara felt her heart sink.
When her phone rang, she pulled it out and glanced at the little screen. JWinchester calling. Shit. She'd almost managed to forget about John. But she couldn't ignore him, either.
She answered the call, holding the phone close to her ear. "Lucian."
"Sara? Are you still working with Dean? I can't get hold of him and there might be a Black Dog two states over-"
"He's gone."
There was a long pause before John spoke again. He was a Hunter, after all, he knew what that sort of 'gone' meant. "What? Where? What the hell happened?"
"We were looking into some disappearances. It was a Doppelganger. It took Dean."
"Have you broken the mirror?"
"Yeah. But you know that doesn't always-"
"If you broke the mirror, he'll come back."
So John didn't want to hear the truth. Fine, she could live with that. "Yeah."
"Get him to call me when he gets back."
"Sure thing."
Sara slipped the phone away again. At least John could remain stupidly optimistic about his son. She had the despair covered quite nicely.
xxx
The final (short) chapter will be up by Monday evening. Reviews are loved, guys!